Rise

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  April thought about it. “The answer has to be yes.”

  “So,” Mary said, “I think we should ask, and keep on asking, when we don’t understand what he is doing.”

  “He has reasons,” April said.

  “I assume so. Does this life feel arbitrary to you?”

  April laughed at that. “Anything but.”

  “Then we should let that be a lesson to us,” Mary said.

  “You remember my painting on the cave walls.”

  “Of course! Who could forget that?”

  “They predicted things. Even some things we don’t understand yet. I remember painting fire . . . but I didn’t know what was coming. And the pictures explained other things. Like Reese’s story. And David. All of that came through the Spirit.”

  “So what does that tell you?” Mary asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  “That you’re right. Nothing is arbitrary. And there are reasons . . . answers, if we’ll ask for them.”

  April thought a moment. “Maybe we need to get better at asking the right questions too.” Like who we are. And who the Spirit is. And what death and life really mean. It suddenly seemed incredible to her that they could have been fighting their battles all these years without ever really understanding those things.

  She glanced at the clock. “When is Shelley coming?”

  “In about an hour. Nick’s upstairs, ‘getting ready.’”

  April thought she knew what that looked like. As a kid when she had to be with someone who didn’t feel safe, she would obsess over “organizing” her things—mostly packing and repacking and repacking the few meagre belongings she had, and adding anything extra she could find. Because it helped give her a sense of preparation and a tiny sense of control. At least, that’s why she thought she had done it. She wondered if she should go upstairs and try to talk to Nick about the upcoming visit. Silently, in spirit, she reached out—yes, she could feel him up there, feel the frantic edge to whatever he was doing.

  Sigh.

  She fought back an urge to just take him somewhere for the day, conveniently disappear. They couldn’t do that to his mother. Right? Anyway, they didn’t need her calling the police on them. The Oneness’s relationship with Shelley had grown distinctly rockier since her initial rush of gratitude for their getting Nick away from the hive. For a time they had hoped she might come into the Oneness herself, but instead she had gravitated back to her old life, and the more she drank and spent time with Nick’s father, the less she liked or trusted the cell. On one occasion when she felt they were overstepping their boundaries, she had threatened to call the cops. And their relationship with the police was, likewise, rockier than formerly. There was the whole cemetery thing, and the fact that Reese had failed to bring back their star prisoner and instead apparently lost him to death.

  No, it was probably best that they not “lose” anyone else, even just temporarily in an attempt to get a boy away from parents who were the most unstable and damaging thing in his life.

  At least she could try to calm him down.

  She headed upstairs and knocked on his door, listening to the hasty shuffle on the other side.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me, Nick. Let me in.”

  He opened the door and poked a blond head out. “It’s not locked.”

  “I try to respect your privacy.”

  “Thanks.”

  She peered past him. Clothes—most of them bought for him during an afternoon shopping trip with Richard and Mary, since the few things he’d brought with him were ratty and too cold for the coming winter—were strewn everywhere around an open duffel bag, along with most of Nick’s other belongings.

  “You’re just going out for a couple of days,” she commented.

  “I’m taking stuff just in case.”

  “In case of what?” She eased onto the bed, pushing aside a mound of clothing and a few comic books. “What are you worried about?”

  “I dunno, just in case.”

  “It’s okay, Nick,” April said. “It’s okay for you to feel like this. But you’ll be coming back here. We aren’t going to lose you. Look, I’ll make you a deal: fish and chips when you get back.”

  “At the pub?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you gonna buy me a new sketchbook?”

  “Are you through with the old one?” April asked, surprised.

  “Almost.”

  “Okay. I’ll buy you a new one. But you have to try to draw something new. You’re getting stuck in a rut with all these flames.”

  “I will if you will,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. She laughed, glad to have moved his mind onto something else—onto something good in the future, something to look forward to and work toward. Something that would anchor him to his new life even when he was temporarily back in the old one.

  It’s just for a few days, she reminded herself. You’re as bad as Nick, acting like he’s going away for weeks or something.

  But there was a very real sense of foreboding in the air. She wondered if she should pay attention to that.

  No, she decided. She was just feeling the remnants of her own childhood. Nick brought so much of that back for her. But he also reminded her of how far she had come. That that life was long, long gone.

  As it would be for him, eventually.

  The Oneness was his life now, as it was hers.

  She considered that she was going through another transition now. That the Spirit himself was becoming her new home and she was leaving an old life behind again. That thought, springing out of nowhere, left her feeling a little shaken. She loved this life. She wasn’t sure she was ready to leave it.

  Or that she trusted where she was going.

  She chided herself silently. You’re not leaving anything behind. The Oneness is still home. The Oneness is part of the Spirit, remember?

  The moment of connection with Mary in the kitchen just minutes ago reassured her now.

  Nick seemed happier after her promise of a new sketchbook, and she noticed that he didn’t stuff everything he had laying out into the duffel bag—though he still packed enough for a week away at least, including comic books. She looked around and tossed a packet of pencil crayons his direction.

  “Here, catch.”

  He did. “What?”

  “Pack those.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you get free time, you should draw comic books, not just read ’em. You’re an artist. Daily discipline, remember?”

  “Fine,” he said, stuffing them into the bag. She smiled. One more link with home—the charge from her, a commitment to keep, a more significant tie even than her promise.

  “You got paper?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Good. Work on something good for me, if you get a few minutes.”

  “I am,” Nick said proudly. “I’m working on a comic book about Richard.”

  “Richard?”

  “Yeah, and the hive wars.”

  She hid a smile. “I like it.”

  And she did.

  Nick’s face had figured large in her painting in the cave. She didn’t know why, but he had a bigger part in this story than any of them knew yet. So it seemed right that in his eleven-year-old way, he was chronicling it. And he couldn’t have chosen a better hero.

  * * *

  The day they began to bring all of the dying above ground dawned clear and crisp, the chill burning off as the sun rose higher. The guards had been conscripted for the task of carrying litters of diseased men and women and children up the narrow stairways of the castle, into the sun, and then under the shelter of the tents that had turned the courtyard into a veritable town. Most tents were open to the air, entire sides pulled back.

  Teresa oversaw the work until she was satisfied they were being handled with proper care; then she disappeared into the chapel and reappeared carrying the first finished painting. She had worked on it long into the night, disdaining to return t
o her quarters until the early hours of morning—even then, if she hadn’t known sleep was necessary to service on this day, she might have remained in the chapel until sunrise.

  Ten years ago, the paintings had simply been placed wherever the most eyes could see them. That was harder here, with the sick divided into tents, so she picked up her easel and the painted wooden panel and set it in the centre of the largest tent, where eight different pallets lay with their occupants in various stages of wasting away.

  She did not remember, ten years ago, that placing her work within the sight of the diseased made any immediate difference.

  But it did now.

  Perhaps she was simply more sensitive to it this time—but she saw it in their eyes, in their mouths, in the tone of their skin. It was as though sunlight was shining directly on them, and it changed their aspect entirely. So much so that she caught her breath when she turned away from setting the painting up and took in their faces.

  And then there was Tildy, who had come in sometime while the painting was being set up, and was staring at it now with her jaw slack and her entire posture frozen in place—

  Seeing herself, maybe truly, for the first time.

  Teresa hadn’t realized until this moment how much power there could be in that.

  She crossed the tent floor to Tildy’s side. The girl looked at her bewildered, and Teresa drew her under her wing and said, “I asked the Spirit for a picture, and that is what he drew through me. Can you see how beautiful it is?”

  She nodded dumbly, and then tore her eyes away, looking around at the sick while she dashed tears from her narrow face. That they could see the beauty too was clear—there was still, on their countenances, that sense that the sun was shining.

  Tildy returned her attention to an ailing woman as some of the less-helpful of the servants arrived, carrying buckets of water and gruel. She kept her expression downcast, and Teresa saw fear and shame in the way she moved—as though she did not want any of her fellows to know that for a moment, she had seen herself as something radiant.

  But the sick themselves had no such fears. Murmurs rose, and then gasps, and Teresa watched in amazement as some began to push themselves up on their pallets, rising for a clearer view.

  And then one, a child of thirteen or fourteen summers who had been near death only the night before, was on her feet—standing fascinated before the painting, tracing Tildy’s face with a finger.

  It took a moment for everyone to truly realize what was happening. In fact, it was one of the surlier servants who voiced it first.

  “Impossible,” he said. “The girl is healed!”

  Things then began to happen very fast. Teresa turned to see Tildy helping the woman she had been tending to her feet, and across the tent, a man was trying his own legs. Nor did they let him down. Murmurs turned to shouts, and then to laughter, and she heard the words whispering and then rioting through the air—“A miracle! A miracle! They are healed! A miracle!”

  Franz Bertoller, drawn by the shouts, stood in the entrance of the tent with surprise and something else lighting his face—something she could not identify but remembered. That expression had been there ten years ago.

  Confusion.

  Back then, she had seen enmity in it.

  Now, she didn’t know what to think it was.

  Two of the servants were wrestling the painting of Tildy off its easel, shouting something about taking it to another tent. To more of the dying. Teresa thought she should intervene but didn’t know how, or why—she didn’t really know what was happening.

  This was far, far out of her control.

  Tildy appeared at her elbow and tugged at her. “Come,” she said, breathless, “come with us to see if the miracle will spread.” The men carrying the painting seemed unsteady on their feet, and suddenly it looked as though they would all go down—they staggered, not from the weight of the thin panel, but as though they were drunk. “Be careful with that!” Tildy shouted after them, still tugging insistently at Teresa.

  Shaking her head, Teresa gave in and followed the growing crowd to the next tent. She found as she walked that the ground seemed to tip under her—as though something in the air inebriated them all. Sounds of laughter joined the shouts, and beside her one of the servants fell to his knees and began to laugh uproariously, holding his ribs, tears running down his face.

  “What is this?” Teresa asked the air. Her next step lurched, and her legs would not hold her up; she bent slowly to her knees—and something drew her eyes up.

  The courtyard was full of golden light, as from a great fire burning in the day. On all sides, men and women were on their knees and hands and faces on the courtyard stones, some crying, some laughing, many shouting. More and more of the diseased were emerging from tents—many had not even seen the painting yet, but the miracle worked of its own accord. But it was none of that that riveted Teresa’s attention.

  It was the vision of a figure like a man standing in the air above the courtyard holding a sword in one hand and a wineskin in the other. Light poured forth as wine from the skin, flowing through the air into the courtyard. The figure was tall, golden, and shining so brightly that his features were obscured.

  And yet, Teresa knew when his eyes turned to her, and her breath escaped her lungs when the great shining head nodded at her—as one who acknowledges a friend.

  And then the eyes were raised and fixed on one who stood at the back of the courtyard, on the steps of the castle. Teresa turned her head and followed the gaze as it fastened on their host, the lord of the castle, with his expression that had turned to fear.

  Though his eyes did not indicate that he could see the figure standing in the midst of the hilarity of healing, Franz turned abruptly and disappeared into the castle, slamming the door behind him.

  * * *

  Shelley was due to bring Nick back after three days. April spent the three days trying not to think about him too much. Now and again she tried to reach out through the Oneness and sense how he was doing, but he was far away, and the connection wasn’t strong enough. That was probably a good sign—she thought she would know if he was in any serious distress.

  But her own memories of home visits kept her from relaxing fully until he was back home in the cell house.

  She talked Richard into agreeing that she could take Nick out for the promised pub food as soon as he got home. He was supposed to get back at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, and given Shelley’s track record, April figured they would be about an hour late.

  By five-thirty, she had stopped perching on the counter and taken to pacing the kitchen; by six, she was openly worried and alternating between checking the clock, looking out past the lace curtains to see if anyone had driven up without her hearing them, and trying to reach out in the Spirit for some sense of where Nick was and what was happening to him.

  “It’s okay, April,” Richard said, sitting at the kitchen with a book and his reading glasses. “Shelley’s late. She’s always late.”

  “I don’t know,” April said, rubbing her arms. “I just don’t . . .”

  She didn’t know why she stopped. Nothing happened to cut her off; she heard nothing, saw nothing. But she had a sudden sense of needing to pay attention.

  And when she did, she felt something through the Oneness. A shift.

  He wasn’t okay.

  She grabbed her coat from the hook near the door. “Something’s wrong. I’m going to find him.”

  “Where?” Richard asked, taking off his glasses and standing. “Where are you going to look?”

  “I don’t know. I just need to find him. He’s not okay; I can feel it.”

  “You can’t just rush out there, April. We need something to go on.”

  The “we” was reassuring, and Richard was right—April stopped with the door half-open, letting in an icy wind, and thought a moment. “Shelley’s house. Maybe they’re just over there.”

  Richard was already grabbing his hat and keys. Eve
n through her growing anxiety, April thought of Nick’s comic book and smiled. His hero was coming to rescue him. No trace of the fear she had felt toward Richard only a short time ago was left—she wasn’t sure how she had ever compared him to her father, even for a moment.

  Maybe when you were trying hard not to open yourself up to the Spirit or to let it—him—act in a way that was outside of your control, it shut you off from the truth of other people too.

  In any case, there was no one she would rather have with her now.

  The air outside the door was biting cold and winter dark, offset by the moon on the bay below and the glow of striped remnants of a recent light snowfall. April could see her breath in the light over the front door. She rubbed her hands together as Richard started his car and drove it up so she could jump in. The engine strained against the cold as they coasted down the road and turned toward the lower-income area where Nick had lived the last several years. Always awake at night, the neighbourhood was darkened by drawn shades and doors and porches sealed shut against the cold. In the summer, the street was awake to the blare of TVs, the bark of dogs, and the shouts of people—mothers yelling at their kids, kids yelling at their dogs, men yelling at each other. In comparison, the street in winter was eerily silent.

  Richard’s headlights swept up a road marked with potholes and blowing trash from a metal can that had tipped over and not been righted. The can itself rolled in the gutter on the side of the street.

  He pulled into a driveway.

  “This is it.”

  April stared through the dark. “No, it’s not. It was more . . .”

  “This is it,” Richard said. “It’s the right address.”

  She didn’t want to say it, and he didn’t either. Not only did it not look like anyone was there, but it didn’t look like any had been there recently—

  Maybe not in months.

  April got out and drew a deep breath before she knocked on the front door. Not anticipating an answer, she stalked across the yard and tried to peer through the dark front window. Nothing. No one.